News Briefs

Best Value

The University of Virginia is ranked No. 1 for the second year in a row among 50 “best value” public colleges and universities, according to The Princeton Review. Rankings criteria cover three areas: academics, cost of attendance and financial aid. “UVA exerts a tremendous effort to ensure that its undergraduates have access to an affordable education regardless of economic circumstances,” wrote Princeton Review editors.

Zipping Around

The University has partnered with Zipcar, a car-sharing service that allows members to rent a car by the hour or the day. Intended to decrease the number of vehicles on Grounds and relieve parking demand, six self-service Zipcars—three hybrid Honda Insights and three Honda Civics—are available for use 24 hours a day, seven days a week by faculty, staff and students over 18.

Highest Honors

President John T. Casteen III (Col ’65, Grad ’66, ’70) and J. Thomas Parsons, chairman of the department of microbiology, received the Thomas Jefferson Awards for service and scholarship, respectively. During Casteen’s 20-year presidency, UVA has been consistently ranked among the top public institutions in the U.S. Parsons, who joined the School of Medicine faculty in 1974, is a leading researcher in the field of cell signaling, an important avenue of cancer research. The awards are the highest honors that the University bestows.

Poetic Justice

Lisa Russ Spaar

Charles Wright

Two poets at the University of Virginia have received Library of Virginia literary awards. Lisa Russ Spaar (Col ’78, Grad ’82), a professor of English, received the annual poetry prize, and Charles Wright, Souder Family Professor of English, was recognized with the library’s Weinstein Poetry Prize. Spaar also received a 2010 Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia and the Dominion Foundation.

Admission Record

UVA has received a record 22,396 applications for admission into the Class of 2014, surpassing last year’s record total 21,831. Current enrollment projections call for an entering first-year class of about 3,240 students. The total cost of attendance for the current first-year class is estimated at $21,140 for Virginians and $43,140 for out-of-state students. Among students receiving aid, the average award is $15,840.